


Rogue One: Epilogue

by naevia_nadia



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Additional Tags in Author's Note, Angst, Check Author's Note for tags that could be considered spoilers for Rogue One, F/M, Fix-it fic, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Rogue One Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8870065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naevia_nadia/pseuds/naevia_nadia
Summary: After the events of Rogue One, Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor discuss what happened on that ill-fated mission and look to an uncertain future for the Rebellion.  Mostly, they mourn what has been lost.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I got home from Rogue One and immediately wrote this in a couple hours; editing it was a real treat for sure. 
> 
> I didn't want to put these tags in the 'Additional Tags' because of spoilers for the end of the movie, but this fic does contain survival's guilt and thoughts of death/ suicide. Please be careful reading this; this does have some heavy angst, but it's not too bad in my opinion. It is meant to be a fix-it. 
> 
> I hope to make this into a series, tackling Orson Krennic's survival in the next fic. However, I can't make any promises because I also have a lot of Kylux I want to write. I'll keep everyone posted on my blog, but I do have tons of time to write this weekend because I'll be in the mountains with no Wi-Fi. I'm excited!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this fic, as I enjoyed writing it and getting into these new characters' headspace. I hope I did them justice <3

\----------------------

“When will he wake up?”

This was the fourth time in as many minutes that Jyn Erso had asked this. The medic on duty had given her the same reply four times as well, that he didn’t know when Cassian Andor would wake up. Just that they thought he would. 

Thought. Or hoped. Either word could have been used, though Jyn felt no comfort at the second word. At this point in time, hope felt very distant. 

Princess Leia Organa’s transport had been intercepted a couple hours ago. No word as to what exactly happened reached the base on Yavin 4, but Jyn expected the worse. Nothing good would come out of Darth Vader himself boarding her vessel. 

So many people died for those plans. If Darth Vader had succeeded in taking back the Death Star schematics, their sacrifice would have been for nothing. And the Rebellion didn’t know what happened. The not knowing was the worst part; it let Jyn’s mind spiral into every worst-case scenario she could think of. 

Jyn turned away from those thoughts, back to the man lying on the hospital bed in front of her. His vitals seemed stable, but Jyn could only guess. She wasn’t a medic. One or two would come by every couple of minutes, look at Jyn like she was meant to be there and change the fluid in a medical bag or press on the tender spots where Cassian hit the durasteel beams in the information room. Jyn could still hear each thump echo through her skin as Cassian’s body struck each beam. The sound was sickening. 

Cassian had a punctured lung when they collapsed on that beach, too many broken ribs to count and internal bleeding that made his skin doughy and hot. Jyn couldn’t support much weight on her right leg and her shoulders ached with torn muscles. But as she stared across the beach at the encroaching Death Star, she couldn’t feel anything. No pain. She and Cassian looked at each other and accepted their fates, reveled in the hope a simple transmitted message could bring. They embraced. Jyn had long since forgotten what it felt like to touch another person; the last person she had truly touched was her father, dying in her arms on that platform, flames licking at her face and tears burning in her eyes. 

And then, suddenly, the pain came back. They were alive. 

Jyn looked up first. The sky was cloaked with smoke and clouds, but the Death Star had disappeared. Whoever was up there had decided that this time, it was too late for an Imperial victory. The Death Star had left, as quietly as she had come. All that remained was Cassian’s ragged breathing in her ear, the putrid scent of sea salt and blood and someone, someone far in the distance, yelling her name. 

“ _Erso_.” A medic’s voice started Jyn out of her recollections. It had seemed so very real. Now, though, sitting on a crate pulled from the flight deck and staring blankly into the blue eyes of a Rebel medic, it was just another memory. 

Blue eyes. Not as blue as Chirrut’s, no, no one’s could be that kind of blue. 

“Erso. You need to move.” 

Jyn nodded. She didn’t move until the medic prodded her again. She had sunken into another memory, of Chirrut’s chant. What was it again? She could barely recall it. 

“Erso. Are you with me?”

The medic waved a hand in front of Jyn’s face. She startled and finally heard his demands. She stood up with some effort; even with a soak in bacta her leg was still very weak. Her shoulders fared even worse; apparently muscle and bone reacted differently to bacta. Jyn hadn’t known that before. 

The medic moved in front of her to check Cassian’s ribs. Jyn didn’t know how they fixed his ribs so fast, probably bacta or something, but they couldn’t puncture his lung again. The internal bleeding was trickier, or so it seemed when the medics pulled Cassian out of her grasp, ignored her tears and yells and repressed rage at the fact that her hope had gone to waste. 

All those people. Dead. Just for a schematic that will surely be lost to the Empire if Vader succeeded. When. 

When Cassian woke up.

“Is he going to wake up soon?”

The medic shook his head. He must be new then, Jyn thought, since he didn’t react more irritably to Jyn’s repeated question. 

“He might wake up today. Might wake up tomorrow,” he moved to the chart at Cassian’s bed, picked it up, read something on it and nodded. “Internal bleeding seems to have stabilized, which is good. No more invasive surgery.” He set the chart down. “Still, with this much trauma, it’s best for him to sleep. He’s earned it, that’s for sure.”

“How?”

“Well, he’s a hero,” the medic said incredulously, as if he and Jyn had been taught opposite meanings of the word. “So are you, matter of fact. We owe a lot to you two.” He punctuated this with a warm smile, one that Jyn couldn’t help but compare to Krennic’s even though they were complete opposites. It made her response to the medic harsh, though no less accurate. 

“And to everyone still lying on that beach.”

They hadn’t been able to go back for any of the bodies. The Imperials had swarmed the base too fast. All Jyn could do was ineffectively yell at the pilot to turn around, to go back for them, can you hear me, listen to me, they _died_ for you!

The medic instantly sobered. It was only then that Jyn noticed the dark circles under his eyes, his short-bitten nails, the lankness of his brown hair. He bowed his head and simply said, “Yes. They gave us everything.” 

Jyn looked down. She wanted to say something to the medic, even just nod, but she couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t because unlike everyone else on that battlefield, she wasn’t fighting for the Rebellion. She didn’t give them everything, barely gave them anything but her cooperation. She was only fighting for her freedom, then her father, then for revenge. It was only at the last moment, when she accepted her death with Cassian beside her, that she fought for hope in the face of imminent destruction.

And then, destruction never came. And slowly, so slowly, the hope faded until nothing was left but the ache in her shoulders and the deep, deep breathing of Cassian Andor. 

\----------------------

No word from Leia Organa. It had only been a day, but to the Rebellion it felt like a week. They had no idea if the Death Star schematics were still in Rebel hands. Even with the panic over Organa’s whereabouts, the base on Yavin 4 was quiet. Much of the fleet had been destroyed; even more people had been lost. The ones left behind were less willing to talk as freely as they once had. Most took to solitude or to the company of ships and droids. 

In the new silence of the base, Jyn found herself by Cassian Andor again, only a day since she had last seen him. To her, it felt like a week. 

“I’ve eaten today,” Jyn said. She enjoyed talking to Cassian, even if he couldn’t really hear her. She liked to think he could. “A bowl of grain and blue milk.” She huffed a laugh. “Reminds me of when I was a kid. My mom used to call me her own little Bantha calf. Not my fault it was so sweet.” She soaked in the memory of her mother, of drinking it at the table or on the floor or at her father’s work station on the Imperial base where they lived. Krennic was always in the shadows there, smiling at her in the way he did. 

Jyn shook herself out of the disturbing memory. She turned back to Cassian. “Have you ever had blue milk? Of course you have. Everyone in the galaxy has had it at least once.”

Like yesterday, Cassian didn’t respond. Jyn wouldn’t know if he was still alive if not for the heart monitor that beeped repeatedly beside her. His breathing was so slow and deep that it felt artificial. Like a droid Jyn had once encountered on a base somewhere. It was programmed to simulate human breathing, to make humans ‘more comfortable’ around it. 

Yet it had the exact opposite effect. The poor droid stood in that shop for as long as Jyn was on the base, breathing away and looking to every customer with hope in its flickering eyes. Jyn pitied it then, for trying so hard. K-2SO had been more human than that thing, and it couldn’t even breath. It had charm. That’s what mattered.

They never went back for K-2. They couldn’t, not with the Imperials swarming the planet. He must still be trapped on the other side of the door, in whatever destroyed state the Imperials left him in. Jyn bowed her head above Cassian’s body and tried to hold back the emotions flooding her body. She failed. 

\----------------------

Cassian Andor woke up 34 hours after being brought to the Yavin 4 base. To Jyn, it felt like an eternity. To the med crew, it felt like a miracle. 

Jyn had rushed to the medbay the instant she heard that Cassian woke up. Unfortunately, she was immediately met by the entirety of medbay and shoved out until they could assess Cassian’s condition. That had taken the better part of an hour, but then, finally, Jyn was let in to the silent medbay. Across the room, sitting up against numerous pillows with his eyes fixed ahead, was Cassian Andor. 

At first, Jyn didn’t know what to do. Then, slowly and quietly so not to break the peace, she walked over to Cassian’s bed. Her steps were silent. 

Cassian spoke first, when she stopped in front of him. “They told me I had a punctured lung and internal bleeding. Bruising up and down my body. Torn ligaments and strained muscles.” 

Jyn pulled up her crate and sat down on it. She nodded. She wanted Cassian to continue. 

“And yet,” Cassian said. He brought up his fingers to stare at them in wonder. “It feels like nothing happened at all.” 

Jyn couldn’t tell if Cassian was trying to be funny. It didn’t seem possible, not at a time like this, so she didn’t laugh or snicker or snort. It seemed improper. 

It was the right answer. Cassian tightened his fingers in a fist so hard that his arm shook. Then, exhausted by this, his arm dropped. 

“It just doesn’t seem real,” he whispered to himself. 

“No,” Jyn said, just as quietly. “It doesn’t.”

“I keep thinking K-2 will come in, tell me something that’s true but unwanted like he always does. But I know he won’t. He got shot up outside that door while we searched for the Death Star plans.” 

Cassian looked at Jyn, as if looking for her to disagree, to tell him the truth that K-2 was pulled from the base and was waiting just outside for him, a quip at the ready. 

Jyn said nothing. 

Cassian’s face hardened. “So, everything else the medics said is true?”

“About what?” Jyn asked, not wanting to give away any unnecessary information. Cassian may have been awake, but he’s still injured. He didn’t need to know everything that’s happening, especially about what happened to Leia Organa. 

“The rest of the squadron. Chirrut. Baze. The Imperial pilot, Bodhi.” Cassian inhaled a shuddering breath. “They’re dead too?” Again, he looked at Jyn, begging her to tell him differently. 

But Jyn couldn’t lie to him. She looked down and nodded. She didn’t see the anguished look that flashed across Cassian’s face before it was shoved away. 

“We’re the only ones who got off then?”

“Some X-wing pilots escaped. You know, the ones that came later. A couple ground soldiers got lucky.” Jyn shook her head. She still couldn’t look Cassian in the eyes. Whatever strength and defiance she had within her left with the Death Star. “But no. Everyone from Rogue One is dead. Except us.”

Cassian snorted. “Typical.”

That made Jyn flick her gaze to Cassian. “What?”

“They called me a hero, you know,” Cassian said in a complete non-sequitur. His gaze was unfocused in front of him. “The medics when they were checking up on me. Every single one of them.” He shook his head. “Of all people. Me.”

Jyn again didn’t know what to say. She just stared at him in silence. 

Cassian looked at her and deflated. Again, he had exhausted himself. 

There’s a period of silence, not even punctured by the beeping of a heart monitor because Cassian didn’t need one anymore. The medics took it off. Then, Cassian spoke, again in a non-sequitur. 

“Chirrut believed in the Force. He believed that it would lead him to goodness. And it did. Baze followed Chirrut, so I guess he followed the Force too, wherever it led him. He fought for the Rebellion because of that ideal. That the Force would lead him to the good side.” Cassian took a deep breath because he had been speeding up with every word. “Bodhi, fuck _Bodhi_. He was tortured by one of our own, an extremist but an old Rebel just the same. And he still fought for us.” Cassian sounded incredulous. He thrust his hands forward as if his voice couldn’t express how unbelievable Bodhi’s actions were. “He made it possible to get that message out. It was his actions that saved our lives. And, fuck, K-2—” Cassian’s voice choked. 

“They were heroes,” Jyn said, parroting what she has been hearing around the base these past 34 hours. Cassian’s face crumpled further and he turned to his side. Jyn panicked, repeated herself but Cassian only shrunk further into himself. Finally, as a last resort, Jyn grabbed Cassian’s shoulder to turn him towards her. That’s when he broke. 

“ _And I’m not_!” Cassian screamed. 

Jyn was shocked into silence. Cassian breathed heavily in front of her, his rage quickly fading into a sorrow Jyn felt too, but couldn’t express properly, not until Cassian had woken up. They were the last remaining members of Rogue One squadron. They were the only ones who truly understood what happened on that base. 

Jyn found herself speaking with no explanation besides the desire to take that sorrowful expression off Cassian’s face. “When I was twelve,” Jyn began. “I knocked a girl down and kicked her in the stomach. Just because she was carrying a whole roast chicken, and I was so hungry. She was hungry too, but I didn’t care. I never saw her again. Who knows what happened to her.” She had cried for Jyn to come back. She hadn’t even cursed at her like Jyn would have done. She only sobbed in the dirt and made no move to stand. 

Jyn shook her head, threw herself out of the memory and into a new one, one objectively worse than before. “When I was thirteen, I stabbed someone for the first time. He tried to grab at me, and I panicked. Who knows what he was looking for, but he was bleeding out on the ground in front of me. I didn’t help him. I turned and ran because I heard Stormtroopers coming. I never saw him again. I think I might have killed him.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Cassian moaned. There were tears running slick down his face to collect in his unshaven beard. “Hasn’t there been enough pain?”

“I’m telling you because I’m not a hero either!” 

Even Jyn surprised herself with how loud she yelled. Cassian was surprised too, if his gaping mouth was anything to go by. 

Jyn cut into Cassian just as he tried to speak. She held up a hand. “No, let me finish. I’m not a good person. I didn’t join the Rebellion because I believed in it. I didn’t care that Stormtroopers patrolled the streets and beat people just for existing. I only cared once they beat me! Once I learned that my father was trapped under their boot! Once he was dead and the only thing keeping me going was the thought of putting a blaster up to Krennic’s head and pulling it. Does that make me a good person?” Jyn pointed at herself, poked at her chest roughly until it hurt. “Does it?”

Cassian shook his head, but it was no answer. 

“It doesn’t, Cassian! We have both done terrible things, you for the Rebellion because you believed in freedom but me? Me? _Me_?” Jyn scoffed, suddenly tired. “I just fought for myself. It was only at the very end, on that beach with the Death Star in the sky, that I truly felt I was fighting for the Rebellion. Right at my death.”

“But you didn’t die. You can fight for the Rebellion now.”

“But that’s just the problem, isn’t it?” Jyn bit. Cynicism clung to her words. “ _Right_ when the Death Star disappeared, I went _right_ back to what I am. The medics had to pry me off you when they came, you know. I didn’t want to give you up. Because I’m selfish and wanted you for myself. Because everyone else was gone, and I needed someone to stay with me. And you were there.” 

After her speech, Jyn breathed hard. She stared at Cassian, and her eyes demanded a response from him. Cassian didn’t disappoint. 

“I just don’t understand why I—” At Jyn’s eyes narrowing, Cassian corrected himself. “Why _we_ lived and those who deserved it didn’t.” 

“Maybe it’s the Force giving us another chance.” Jyn snorted. “Or maybe it’s just dumb fucking luck.” 

Cassian smiled slightly at that, so Jyn thinks she succeeded somewhat in taking the sorrow from Cassian’s face, even at the price of so much freely given information. She can’t remember the last time she told someone that much about her life. In fact, Jyn can’t remember any time at all. Jyn narrowed her eyes and thought harder. But her mind and body were tired. Thinking was proving itself to be a difficult task. She didn’t know how her father did it, all those years. 

“Jyn?” Cassian interrupted Jyn’s thinking with the one word. His head was resting deep in his pillows. His eyes were narrowing into sleep, but he was rebelling against it. 

“Hmm?” Jyn was feeling the same pull to sleep too. Still, she didn’t want to leave medbay and face whatever news the Rebellion had on Princess Leia’s whereabouts. 

“Thank you for holding onto me. On the beach, when the Death Star was coming.” 

“Oh. You’re welcome.” 

“I think you were a hero then. For staying with me.”

Jyn smiled softly, even if she doesn’t quite believe him. “I think you were a hero then too.” She then reached over and brushed a thumb against Cassian’s eyebrow. His eyes closed fully. He finally surrendered to sleep. 

And then Jyn said, at a whisper barely heard in the silence of the medbay, “For staying with me. Right until the very end.”

**Author's Note:**

> Curse you Lucas Films...............I did not deserve so much Pain...............
> 
> Check me out here [@lady-starkiller](http://lady-starkiller.tumblr.com) for more Rogue One, Kylux and shitty memes and writing ~*~


End file.
